by: JIMMIE TRAMEL
World Sports Writer
6/22/2008 12:00 AM
The rebuke shaped the Bucs defender's integrity.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Derrick Brooks leads all current NFL players in career tackles (2,087), but he was on the receiving end of the biggest hit of his life.
When Brooks was a fifth grader, stepfather A.J. Mitchell showed up at school and gave the future NFL star a life-changing spanking.
"My dad, he warned me about being a class clown," Brooks said. "I kind of called his bluff and he showed up at the school one day as I was being a class clown and he whipped me right there in front of my class. The moral of the story that he taught me was no matter how good of grades I made, and I always made my grades, that it didn't matter if I didn't know how to treat people and if I didn't have respect for others."
Brooks treats people so well nowadays that he was named the 2008 male recipient of the Henry P. Iba Citizen-Athlete Award. He and female recipient Tamika Catchings will be honored Monday at the Renaissance Hotel.
Brooks said the spanking was a "very significant" moment in his upbringing.
You can read the full article on the Tulsa World site at this link:
No comments:
Post a Comment